Danke- Thanks to all who have responded and made this thread an interesting lesson in World History. I very much agree with the comment about most of the German soldiers- we hear about the atrocities of the SS and the Gestapo, and those actions overshadow that of the common "Deutche Soldat" who just wanted to be back home to: Mosel, Frankfort, Cologne or anywhere there was no more fighting and be reunited with his family, in the same manner in which the Allied soldiers wanted- This is also born out by the fact that about 4/100 Allied soldiers captured by the Wehrmacht and incarcerated in POW camps died in captivity, mainly from diseases and not mis-treatment at the hands of their captors. As far as the ratio of Allied prisoners at the hands of the Japanese, I have heard various numbers, anywhere from 60 up towards 84 percent did not survive- disease, starvation, the infamous Battan death march. I often wonder how it was that Hitler could make a pact with the Japs- with Mussolini, yes--and if he hadn't made the mistake of attacking Russia- who can say. Now Germany and Japan are our allies-history is indeed strange-
That being said, here's another story about "Zaftig Reichmarshall Goering"- probably an inner Nazi circle joke- Besides being grossly obese, Goering was a gaudy dresser, wearing all sorts of medals and sashes and always in a uniform that would have made Prof. Harold Hill of "The Music Man" envious- One night, in Berlin at the OperaHaus- the star male singer, also a large rotund man, came out dressed in the same manner as Goering favored- and a Wehrmacht General's wife turned to her husband and said: "Blick, liebes-- ist nicht diese Reichmarshall Goering in seinen Pyjamas auf dem Stadium heute Abend?"-- translated she said to her husband-- Look, dear- isn't that Goering in his pyjamas on the stage tonight?--
Goering was a braggart and fond of boasting-- he may have been a WW1 Ace like Udet and Baron Manfred Von Richtofen, but he was not a brilliant military strategist like FM Irwin Rommel or even "Smilin' Al"-- aka- FM Alfred Kesselring- The Battle of Britian was his to win- but instead of knocking out the British radar towers and then straffing and bombing their airfields, most likely to curry favor with Hitler, he moved to bomb London- the radar gave the Brits a "heads up" on the incoming German aircraft-- rest is history. But Goering was so cocky and confident he once openly said "If an Allied bomb should hit Berlin, you can call me Meyer"--
